Retail Media data is rapidly transforming Connected TV (CTV), bringing verified purchase signals and real shopper intent into an environment traditionally built on broad reach and demographics. In this Q&A, members of our CTV Working Group explain how first‑party retail audiences are enabling more precise targeting, stronger personalisation, and closed‑loop measurement that links TV exposure directly to browsing and buying behaviour.
They also explore the practical realities behind this shift- from GDPR‑compliant data collaboration to interoperability challenges - and share emerging examples from Europe and beyond. Together, their insights show how CTV and Retail Media are converging into a powerful new model of commerce‑driven advertising that blends brand impact with measurable performance.
A big thank you to the following contributors for sharing their thoughts:
Emmanuel Josserand, Sr Dir. Brand, Agency and Industry Relations, Comcast Advertising
Mariana Vieira, Product Manager at SAPO (MEO), representing IAB Portugal
Andreas Hamdorf, Lead Strategic Partner Management, esome advertising technologies for BVDW
Sotiris Oikonomou, Managing Director, MarkApp Media
Emmanuel: "Connected TV and Retail Media are converging to create a new kind of commerce-driven TV advertising, where brands use retailer first-party data to buy premium TV inventory and then measure real sales impact. Instead of treating TV as just an awareness channel, marketers can now activate Retail Media audiences (built from loyalty cards and transaction data) on CTV, reach those shoppers in brand-safe, high-attention environments, and then read back outcomes like sales lift, new buyers, or basket value."
Mariana: "It’s bringing a new level of intelligence to CTV by adding verified purchase and intent signals to an environment that previously relied on demographic or content‑based segments. With first‑party retail audiences, brands can finally reach frequent buyers, category shoppers or consumers actively considering a product - a level of precision that wasn’t possible before. This leads to more relevant and timely personalisation, with creatives that reflect real shopping mindsets. And when you combine this with the scale and premium quality of CTV, it starts to deliver performance‑like results while still building brand impact."
Andreas: "Retail Media data can improve targeting of audiences in CTV. This can lead to increased attention, which in turn can have a positive impact on performance KPIs. CTV advertising is currently still relatively expensive compared to advertising on linear TV. More precise, impact-driven targeting using Retail Media data can help offset the higher CPM. However, this requires that this data can be utilised on CTV channels and platforms. This, in turn, requires that retail media providers make their data available for their own targeting purposes as well as for other advertisers, and that they have the necessary GDPR-compliant consent to do so."
Mariana: "It brings something CTV has been missing for years: a clear link between exposure and actual shopping behaviour. Because the data is rooted in verified transactions, brands can finally understand whether someone who saw a CTV ad went on to browse, add to cart or buy. This creates a more reliable form of closed‑loop measurement and helps distinguish real campaign impact from natural purchase patterns. And when these insights are layered onto CTV’s premium environment, advertisers gain a much sharper view of incremental sales, category lift and new‑buyer penetration, making attribution more grounded in business outcomes rather than proxy metrics."
Andreas: "I agree with what Mariana has already said. However, the effort required to link retail media data regarding conversions with prior advertising interactions is still very high at this point. It’s also only possible on a few CTV platforms. But it’s clear that the market is currently undergoing significant changes, and such options for measurement and attribution will increasingly become part of everyday business in the future. "
Emmanuel: "Connected TV is emerging as a central platform for Retail Media by merging the broad household reach and engagement of traditional TV with the precision of digital targeting. This makes it a seamless addition to both on-site and off-site Retail Media campaigns. As Retail Media budgets seek to expand their reach and achieve measurable results beyond search and social, CTV provides an opportunity to extend these strategies to the largest screen in the home. With closed-loop attribution, it connects TV exposure directly to in-store and online sales, focusing on key performance indicators such as incremental sales, new customer acquisition, and increased basket size, rather than just reach and gross rating points.
Beyond this, AI can serve as a smart layer, leveraging contextual insights and performance metrics, bridging the gap between brand storytelling and direct purchase actions, fully embedding CTV into the Retail Media ecosystem."
Sotiris: "Retail tells you what and when. CTV tells you where attention lives. Integrate at planning, activate contextually, measure against incremental sales.
Andreas: "I’d like to respond here from the brand’s and agency perspective, for which Retail Media data plays a role in both planning and operational execution.
If we can successfully link product sales data with upstream advertising interactions, attention measurement, and downstream performance, this can help us manage CTV campaigns more precisely.
Currently, however, we face the challenge that this linkage is only possible to a limited extent and, for example, also fails because many CTV providers, as well as SSPs and DSPs, do not transmit relevant content and contextual information. We could already measure, plan, and manage far more precisely if all parties involved could work with the necessary content information, as well as the necessary cross-system identifiers."
Sotiris: "Currently we see three main challenges, especially when trying to follow the same patterns as the US:
Andreas: "We also face the challenge that people often use different devices for digital product purchases than they do for CTV advertising exposure. In Europe, and especially in Germany, the CTV device is often the big screen in the living room. With simple IDs from digital targeting and measurement, we often don’t know who is sitting in front of the screen and whether this is the same person who then makes the purchase using a different device. The most accurate and reliable way to make such an attribution is through hashed email addresses."
Sotiris: "There are two examples to note here:
The lesson here is that the winners are consolidating data, inventory and measurement under one roof. Independent ad tech companies win by offering the neutral layer, contextual translation across multiple CTV publishers, without locking brands into a walled garden."
Emmanuel: "TV Retail Connect, a French collaborative marketplace, in France has already demonstrated how powerful the combination of CTV + Retail Media data can be. In a campaign orchestrated across nine different addressable TV channels (France 2, France 3, France 5, M6, W9, 6ter, BFM TV, RMC Story, RMC Découverte), the marketplace targeted Carrefour cardholders identified as coffee-bean buyers using Unlimitail data. TV exposure was matched with Carrefour purchase data, comparing exposed vs. non-exposed groups under strict GDPR conditions to isolate business impact. Further details and results can be found here."
Andreas: "Whilst I can’t name any specific companies, we’ve already gained some initial experience with CTV campaigns in which we used retail media data for targeting. For example, we ran a campaign for a cat litter manufacturer and used targeting data from various providers that had collected this information via retail media. We specifically targeted cat owners and buyers of cat products. We observed that on CTV channels where this data could be utilised, we reached cat owners far more precisely than if we had relied solely on contextual or sociodemographic targeting. The use of targeting data in general—and specifically the data made available through retail media—is gaining increasing attention. As CTV providers in Germany become more open to making their user data available via data clean rooms for analysis, matching, and activation, we will see numerous examples of retail media data usage in CTV over the coming months."
